About Us

We are a boys (11-16) comprehensive school with a mixed boys and girls sixth form. We are consistently heavily over-subscribed, with over 1,000 students on roll including a Sixth Form of over 300 students where we operate a highly successful collaboration with St. Michael’s Grammar School. We have a long and proud history dating back to 1926 when the school was opened as a grammar school by Monsignor Canon Parsons whose name lives on in our recently opened Sixth Form Centre.

The spirit and traditions of those early days have survived the transition to a comprehensive school in 1971 when the grammar school and the Challoner School amalgamated to form Finchley Catholic High School. Our Gospel values live at the heart of everything we do; we have a strong reputation for academic success but we work equally hard to ensure that the varying needs of all pupils are met, not least through our outstanding pastoral care. Many generations of families have attended our school and former pupils regularly return as members of staff!

We have succeeded in recent years in raising funds for an extensive building and refurbishment programme so that our facilities are now first rate and include an astro turf pitch, our own playing fields with pavilion, a Performing Arts Centre, an up to date computer network and our new state of the art Sixth Form Centre. Our site with its iconic White House and interestingly varied architecture is blessed with trees, shrubs and lawns. We offer a very wide range of extra-curricular activities from early morning to after school, including trips abroad, from skiing to music, history and theatre tours. There is a high enrolment for the Duke of Edinburgh scheme with its expeditions for bronze and silver awards.

Our school motto reads: “Da Nobis Recta Sapere” (Grant that we may be truly wise) and we really mean it when we declare that we are a school “Where everybody matters”.